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Labor to fix Turnbull’s ‘NBN mess’

The Federal Labor Opposition has announced that it will rollout ‘Fibre-to-the-Premises’ to up to two million additional Australian homes and businesses.

According to Labor, the Coalition Government has doubled the cost of their ‘second rate’ National Broadband Network (NBN) up to $56 billion. In response, a Shorten Labor Government will cap the total funding for the NBN at $57 billion.

Labor will spend exactly the same amount of public funding on the NBN as the Liberals and claim that there will be no impact on the budget from this announcement.

Under Labor’s plan, the public equity contribution will be the same regardless of who wins the election. The difference, however, is that up to two million more Australians will get a ‘Fibre-to-the-Premises’ NBN under Labor.

Also under Labor, the much criticised rollout of Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘second rate’ copper NBN— ‘Fibre-to-the-Node’ —will be phased out. Construction of ‘Fibre-to-the-Node’ will cease when the current pipeline of construction work is completed and design and construction of ‘Fibre-to-the-Premises’ is scaled back up.

Labor has also announced that it commission Infrastructure Australia, with input from relevant experts, to manage the development of a plan that outlines how and when the parts of Australia left with Mr Turnbull’s NBN should be transitioned to ‘Fibre-to-the-Premises’. This will be commissioned in the first term of a Shorten Labor Government.

Labor believes it can complete the initial rollout of the NBN by 30 June 2022, the same time the Liberals’ lesser quality NBN is likely to be complete.

The Federal Opposition has been very critical of the Coalition Government, claiming that Malcolm Turnbull has ‘made a mess of the NBN’. For example, according to Labor, in the last three years:

The cost of his second rate NBN has nearly doubled.

The time it will take to build has more than doubled.

Australia has dropped from 30th in the world for internet speeds to 60th.

Malcolm Turnbull promised he could build a second rate copper NBN for $29.5 billion. This has now blown out to up to $56 billion.

Labor has reminded voters that Mr Turnbull that Australia would have access to the NBN this year. However, less than 20 per cent of Australians have access to the NBN—a long way short of the 100 per cent promised.

To compound the problem, Australians are now getting a ‘slower, second rate copper NBN’ that will not meet their needs into the future.